After the murder of a family member in 1998, the Alqams built their home in East Jerusalem with compensation granted by Israel. Today, these Palestinians fear its demolition, one of their sons having carried out a murderous attack against Israelis.
The apartment was sealed off by Israeli authorities shortly after the January 27 attack on 21-year-old Khayri Alqam.
He killed six Israelis and a Ukrainian on a Shabbat night near a synagogue in an Israeli settlement neighborhood in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian area occupied and annexed by Israel, before being himself shot.
Hoping to prevent the destruction of their home, the family appealed, arguing that it is a collective punishment, a measure decried by Palestinian and human rights organizations.
The Israeli authorities defend this so-called “deterrent” policy, which consists of razing the houses of Palestinian “terrorists” or their relatives, or tearing down walls in their apartments to make them uninhabitable.
The Alqam family had built the second floor of their house in the Al-Tur neighborhood with part of the money received by Israel after the death of Khayri Alqam’s grandfather, killed in 1998 in Jerusalem.
At the time, it was visited by Israeli President Ezer Weizman. And Khayri Alqam then inherited his grandfather’s first name.
In 2010, an Israeli activist, then supported by far-right figure Itamar Ben Gvir (who became Minister of National Security in December), was arrested for this murder and that of other Palestinians. He was later released without ever being charged, and no one has been convicted since then.
The murderer “must be punished”, launches the uncle of Khayri Alqam, who wished to preserve his anonymity to avoid trouble.
“We got screwed in 1998 and we got screwed today,” he laments.
“Khairy was 21, he was responsible for his life,” admits the uncle, while regretting that the whole family is paying the price for his act. “But who could we complain to?”
The house has since expanded to become a small four-storey building where the relatives of Khayri Alqam reside, who with his parents and siblings lived on the second level.
“We hope that the house will not be destroyed, we have a lawyer and we are waiting” for the appeal to be examined by the Israeli courts, he adds.
The fact that the Israeli authorities funded the Alqams’ home will not prevent its demolition, Nadia Daqqa, a lawyer with the Israeli human rights organization Hamoked, told AFP.
“For them, the house is that of a Palestinian terrorist,” said Daqqa, pointing to the recent hardening of demolition policies after several attacks and the inauguration of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in December, one of the most right-wing in the history of Israel.
These policies now apply to Palestinians who have carried out non-lethal attacks or when they were minors, notes Ms. Daqqa.
For example, the government announced in January that the home of a 13-year-old boy who shot and wounded two Israelis, a father and son, would be sealed off.
He also announced the revocation of the social security rights of “families of terrorists supporting terrorism”, without specifying what form of support could be incriminated. On this subject, the rights of the Alqam family have so far not been called into question.
But this family is the first whose home was sealed off without notice.
For more than two weeks after the attack, the Israeli forces remained on the spot, giving the impression to the inhabitants of the building to be surrounded by a “military roadblock”, relates Moussa Alqam, father of Khayri.
He, his wife Fatima and four of their children, ages 6 to 16, temporarily moved into the fourth floor with his mother.
Owner of the apartments, she finds herself, like the rest of the family, victim of “collective punishment”, regrets Me Daqqa.
Another Palestinian family recently had a similar experience. The Israeli government has announced plans to seal up and demolish the home of Hussein Qaraqa, who earlier this month killed three Israelis in East Jerusalem before being shot.
According to Me Daqqa, when the authorities discovered that he was renting an apartment to a third party, they went in search of another property and set their sights on the parents’ house, sealed before demolition.
In the confusion, that of the assailant’s sister was also sealed, by mistake, before being reopened several days later.
While the government seeks to multiply the measures of reprisals, this error testifies to the “chaos and the crazy current period”, estimates Me Daqqa.
26/02/2023 08:39:22 – Jerusalem (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
